Word: chileanizing
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...certainly important and politically significant, but it's been going on for so long that it's become ever-present. Just as Japan is always aware of the possibility of an earthquake, so is Chile always aware of the conflict over putting Pinochet on trial. For the average Chilean, the issues are important, but they're nothing new. It's been like this for the last two years. In fact, there was a lot more tension when Pinochet was being held in Britain, because then you really didn't know what would happen. Here everyone knows that Pinochet is unlikely...
...fact, this ruling was simply a technicality. The court threw out the indictment on the grounds that Judge Juan Guzman had not first interrogated Pinochet before issuing it, as required by Chilean law. The judge had argued that he'd sent Pinochet a questionnaire when the general was being held under house arrest in London, and although Pinochet hadn't answered any of the questions, he'd returned the questionnaire with the comment "I am innocent of all charges against me." Guzman had taken that to be a deposition, but many other lawyers said it didn't count, because...
...bound to, and Pinochet is legally obliged to make himself available. He can't refuse. An interrogation has to take place within 20 days - so he'll probably try to see the general sometime in January. But there's also the issue of medical checks, which Chilean law requires when someone over 70 is prosecuted. Pinochet is 85, and they are legally bound to check whether he's insane, and whether he can respond to questions. It's a little confusing, because there are so many different cases against Pinochet, and it's not clear whether this issue of medical...
...Although Pinochet supporters proclaimed Monday's decision a victory, eluding arrest on technical grounds does not bode well for the strongman who faces more than 200 criminal complaints in the Chilean courts. Judge Guzman had pressed charges of murder and kidnapping arising out of the "caravan of death," a 1973 campaign in which a group of military officers toured the country rounding up opponents of Pinochet's junta and summarily executing them. The judge's arrest order came as a surprise, since he had previously ordered medical and psychological tests to determine the general's competency to stand trial...
...Despite Monday's slap-down of Judge Guzman, Pinochet's legal road ahead remains blighted. To be sure, he's unlikely to elicit much sympathy from the same Chilean Supreme Court that last August stripped the general of the immunity from prosecution he'd authored for himself as a precondition for stepping down in 1990. Of course it's quite possible that the high court will uphold Monday's technical ruling, but its August decision presumably leaves the field open to Pinochet's accusers to simply keep trying. And that would leave the general's attorneys to fall back...